Syria a no-win for either party in 2014

Another military conflict in the Middle East is the last thing either party wants to be talking about heading into the 2014 midterm.

For lawmakers on the ballot next year, the decision whether to authorize a strike against Syria that President Barack Obama has forced on Congress looks like an all-risk, no-reward proposition, campaign strategists from both parties told POLITICO.

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Democrats will have to choose between defying public opinion — which is deeply divided over another military intervention — or their own president. For Republicans, the vote threatens to magnify the split between hawkish neoconservatives and isolationist libertarians that’s increasingly been on display since Mitt Romney’s defeat last year.

Then there’s the unpredictability of it all. Though it’s obviously too soon to know whether Syria will matter in an election a year or three years from now, one need only ask former Sen. Hillary Clinton about how a vote to authorize war can come back to haunt.

“I don’t see anyone saying, ‘Goody, Syria. Here’s a political issue,’” said Curt Anderson, a national Republican strategist. “I don’t know why [Congress] would want anything to do with this. The polls are pretty clear on it.”

“From an electoral standpoint, no one wants to talk about this,” added Dave Beattie, a Democratic pollster who has been involved in many competitive House and Senate races. “There’s no political upside. You’re talking about something expensive, and people are going to die.”

Neither party planned to make national security a central part of their midterm strategy; indeed, the election season to date has been all about domestic affairs. Both sides have settled on familiar attack lines: Democrats calling Republicans tea party extremists at the root Washington dysfunction, Republicans blaming Obamacare for weighting down the economy and making life that much harder for struggling Americans.

Neither chamber is expected to change hands, but Republicans are seen as having a better shot at netting the six seats they need to take the Senate than Democrats do 17 seats it would take to flip control of the House. But it’s difficult to see how the Syria vote helps either party’s cause.

After lawmakers spent days imploring the White House not to launch a bombing campaign without going to Congress first, Obama over the weekend surprised everyone by giving them precisely what they said they wanted. But few lawmakers from either party now seem particularly eager to debate the merits of an assault on Bashar Assad’s regime.

Their ambivalence is reflected in public opinion. According to an NBC News poll released Friday, only 42 percent of Americans support a military strike against Syria over the suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians (the figure is slightly higher if the response is limited to launching cruise missiles).

The decision is especially tough for senators and House members in swing states and districts. A vote for a military strike risks alienating constituents who don’t see the point of engaging in another Middle Eastern conflict.

“I think it’s going to be a hard decision for anyone in a swing district because there’s no clear, concise strategy,” said Chris LaCivita, a longtime Republican strategist. “It’s not a war anyone wants to have right now. We’re cash strapped now. We’re war weary. And there are some people who don’t believe a military engagement is in the best interest of the U.S.”